GS PAPER III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

Context: The State of the Global Climate 2020 lists the major global warming milestones

• World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its annual State of the Global Climate for 2020.
  • The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics.
  • The WMO originated from the International Meteorological Organization, a nongovernmental organization founded in 1873 as a forum for exchanging weather data and research.

According to the report:

• Extreme weather combined with COVID-19 in a double blow for millions of people in 2020.
• However, the pandemic-related economic slowdown failed to put a brake on climate change drivers and accelerating impacts.
• 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record, despite a cooling La Niña event. The global average temperature was about 1.2° Celsius above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level.
• The six years since 2015 have been the warmest on record. 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record.

The WMO report listed five key indicators of irreversible changes in the global climate:

• Greenhouse Gases: Concentrations of the major greenhouse gases continued to increase in 2019 and 2020. Globally averaged mole fractions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have already exceeded 410 parts per million (ppm), and if the CO2 concentration follows the same pattern as in previous years, it could reach or exceed 414 ppm in 2021.
• Oceans: Over 80 per cent of the ocean area experienced at least one marine heat wave in 2020. The percentage of the ocean that experienced “strong” marine heat waves (45 per cent) was greater than that which experienced “moderate” marine heat waves (28 per cent).
• Sea-level rise: There was a blip in summer of 2020 that recorded a drop in sea level. The WMO report says it is due to the La Niña induced cooling. “Sea level has recently been rising at a higher rate partly due to the increased melting of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
• The Arctic and the Antarctica: In 2020, Arctic sea-ice extent minimum after the summer melt was 3.74 million square kilometer, marking only the second time on record that it shrank to less than 4 million sq km.

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/the-world-was-in-high-fever-in-2020-76586

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